$20 Game of the Week: Warriors Orochi (PS2, Xbox 360)

Koei’s Musou games (or Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors as we know them over here) are a guilty pleasure of gamers. Although they tend to be simplistic and repetitive, they are easy to get into, and they are quite educational thanks to their historical setting. Plus there has always been a certain charm to be gained by slashing up dozens of Chinese warriors or evil samurai with a guy who wields fans as weaponry. While the Dynasty Warriors games cover China’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms period (in which Three Kingdoms vie for ultimate power in the wake of the collapse of the Han Empire), Samurai Warriors deals with Japan’s Age of Warring States (in which Nobunaga went head to head against other warlords in an attempt to unify Japan under one banner). Fans often speculated what would happen if the casts of the two games teamed up. In fact, you can go onto any message board and find a “Samurai Warriors vs Dynasty Warriors Heal/Hurt” game. It would only be a matter of time until Koei and W-Force answered player’s wishes, and in 2007, the great warriors of Ancient China and Japan joined forces in Koei’s Orochi Warriors. While it’s not perfect, it’s the crossover fans have been waiting for.

The Demon King Orochi wishes to conquer the world by subjugating it’s strongest warriors. So to that end, he combines China’s Three Kingdoms era with Japan’s Age of Warring States, causing complete chaos. The kingdom of Shu has been shattered, with many of it’s warriors wither imprisoned or on the run. With their lord Cao Cao believed dead, the kingdom of Wei works for Orochi while plotting behind his back. The kingdom of Wu has been blackmailed into Orochi’s service as many of their officers, including Sun Jian have been kidnapped by Orochi. Meanwhile, Japan’s various provinces are too scattered about in order to make a decent stand. Nevermind the plot though, what this means is that fans will finally get to see Yukimura Sanada meet Zhao Yun, Cao Cao do battle with Nobunaga, and Tadakatsu Honda lock spears with Lu Bu just like on the cover. The game is divided up into 4 storylines, one for each of China’s three kingdoms, and one for the Samurai Warriors cast. Characters from each faction will be mixed throughout the storylines, so the Shu storyline will have characters meeting Yukimura Sanada and Magoichi Saki amongst other Samurai Warriors good guys while Shu’s Guan Ping and Huan Zhong team up with Nobunaga throughout the course of the Samurai Warriors storyline. While every character from Dynasty Warriors 5 and Samurai Warriors 2 (excluding the 6 Xtreme Legends add-ons) is present, the storylines seem to center around a certain group of characters. Each of the 4 storylines has 8 levels, 7 side missions, and an unlockable hidden mission, so while some storylines will intersect, few will be shared amongst each other, unlike in the SW and DW games.

For the most part, Warriors Orochi is just like the other DW games. You pick a warrior, and make your way through each battlefield, fulfilling objectives (which usually revolve around killing an enemy officer at a certain location), taking over control points, and taking out thousands of enemy soldiers along the way. However, Warriors Orochi takes a few new approaches to the formula. Now you control three warriors, switching back and forth between each, letting the two reserve fighters recover. The battle system has been simplified in many ways. First of all, instead of earning new abilities by shopping or grids, you simply unlock them as you go along. Also, characters can gain experience points and apply them to any character they wish, even if they aren’t involved in the current storyline. For instance, you can play with Zhao Yun in the shu storyline, and use the points to build up Hanzo Hattori in the Wu storyline, so by the time you’re ready to play with the Wu kingdom, you’ll have a Hanzo who has been considerably beefed up. Instead of finding hidden saddles to gain a horse, you can simply press the back button on to summon your steed next to you.

This game is strictly for fans of DW/SW. If you are on the fence about these games, or just plain don’t like them, then you might as well stop reading this review, as Warriors Orochi does nothing to reel in newcomers. In fact, most of the levels and music have been recycled from Dynasty Warriors 5 and Samurai Warriors 2. However, fans will get a kick out of seeing SW characters tearing through the Hu Lao Gate or Dynasty Warriors Characters fighting through Edo castle. In fact, as this game does little to set itself apart from other games in the series, the main appeal of Warriors Orochi is the huge amount of characters, as well as the crossover appeal of the series. A sequel to this game was released several months back, so fans will want to pick up this game if they haven’t done so already. While we patiently wait for Koei to do something different and fresh with the franchise, we’ll gladly enjoy this awesome crossover.